Howdy, everybody!
1. We have good news and bad news again.
The good news is book sales are still great because people are looking for inexpensive entertainment. Unfortunately, that’s all the good news we have today. 🙁
The bad news is it’s taking 22 days for paperback short-run orders (24 days for hardcovers) to get out the printer’s door right now. Yeah, we almost fell down when we read that, too.
NOTE: Short run orders are quantity orders placed by publishers for their authors. They are NOT public orders for books, like those placed through Amazon. Our printer is under contract with retailers to print and ship those copies much faster. So, this problem is primarily affecting authors needing copies of their own books.
SEE #2 BELOW ON WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW IF YOU NEED COPIES IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS/MONTHS.
I asked our printer several questions, and am providing all of the info. here because I know you have questions, too.
A. This is affecting all of the thousands of customers our printer serves, including our competitors, and even Amazon, which contracts out printing to our printer on many orders. Our printer has facilities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee, California, the UK, and Australia. The demand they are experiencing has even eclipsed every past Christmas shopping season.
B. This is NOT currently a supply chain issue related to paper, ink, or equipment.
C. This is a DEMAND issue.
D. Several traditional publishers are now relying more heavily on our printer (the largest print on demand printer in the world) because many of them have their own warehouses closed for the virus. These were already customers of our printer. They’re just relying on them for more printing/drop-shipping at this time.
E. Authors are stuck at home, and are pulling out old manuscripts. The printer has a historical influx of new files to process. That also means new print galleys (the first printed/bound copy of each book) must be printed/shipped for each new title. They are only printing those on Fridays now.
F. Our printer is providing printing and drop-shipping for all of the major online book retail outlets. And, Amazon is increasingly relying on our printer to print/ship their books directly to Amazon’s customers because of the virus situation. Amazon itself is also experiencing printing and shipping delays.
G. The printer states, “We’re hoping to see the turnaround time start to come down, but this will happen incrementally. It will still take some time before things return to normal.”
2. Because we know many of you are are going to need copies of your book(s) in the new few weeks or even months (we don’t know when this situation might ease, or if it might even get worse), I have asked Justin here to reinstate the author sale we ran three weeks ago, and to keep it for a week. It will expire at midnight on Monday, 05/18/2020.
DETAILS ARE HERE:
https://secure.booklocker.com/booklocker/book/book-order.html
If you have additional questions, please contact us through your author account RIGHT HERE.
We are all praying for the safety and happiness of you and your families!!
Angela, Ali, Justin, Brian, Todd, and the rest of the BookLocker gang
NOTE: Have you ordered your book trailer yet?
They’re very popular and people using the discount code we provide in book trailers get 20% off their entire BookLocker order! CLICK HERE for details, and to see sample trailers.
Have you downloaded your free copy of 90+ Days of Promoting Your Book Online yet?
It’s RIGHT HERE!
WritersWeekly Needs WRITERS!
We have a shortage of articles in the queue right now and we’d LOVE to pay our BookLocker authors for their wisdom and wit! Please see our writer’s guidelines RIGHT HERE.
